Northern Thailand

I arrived in Bangkok on the morning of March 29th. I headed directly to the train station and caught a train to Lop Buri, aka Monkey Town. I checked in to a homestay for 150 baht (<$5). Then I wondered around until finding the monkeys...it wasn't hard to find as there were monkeys everywhere; crawling along hydro lines, running in the street disrupting traffic, playing with mopeds, eating food off the ground, one even walked up to me and shook my leg as if to say, "Hey, what's going on, got any food for me?" This was a very entertaining experience for me and I went back at various points throughout the day, probably spent a total of 2-3 hours observing the monkies!




After Lop Buri, I caught a train to Phitsanulok. The 3 hour train ride in a comfy seat cost the same as what I'd pay for a meal in Australia, and the train ride came with a complimentary meal and drink. Nice change of pace. The first hotel I saw was right across the street from the train station & cost 200 baht for a room. I had a look at it first and it was pretty bad...no sheets on the bed, squat toilet, peeling paint, I was about to take it because I didn't feel like walking any further in the heat with my big backpack, but then I saw that the shower didn't work so that sent me over the top. I went back to the train station, looked at a map, and found another hotel. On my way there, I saw a nice looking hotel that I decided to check out. The room was everything I could ask for, very clean, fresh sheets & towel, and real toilet. And the price, 200 baht ($6.50), same as the dump I first looked at. Good lesson not to settle too soon.

The next day I went to the local tourist centre to enquire about white water rafting. No one seemed to be able to speak English; I kept being referred to another person until eventually being referred to someone who was there renewing her Visa. Her name was Dolly, a half-Chinese, half-Burmese university professor who's married to a Thai man. She was there with her friends and family, a total of nine of them plus a dog. We chatted for a bit and they invited me to join them for brunch that they brought with them, and I gracefully accepted. We continued to talk and they invited me to come back to their town, stopping at some waterfalls on the way. I didn't have any real plans, and figured this would be an incredible cultural experience, so I gladly accepted.

Once Dolly was done renewing her immigration, we picked up my bag from the hotel and off we went. The ten of us were all in Dolly's truck, a mid-size pick-up, and by using the back box we all fit surprisingly comfortably. They were very kind in giving me the front seat, which I tried to refuse but was given little choice but to accept. We stopped for a meal on the way at a restaurant with a floating deck on the river. There were people playing in tubes, paddle boats and swimming, and our group laughed when they saw an old white guy in a speedo. I liked this moment because it's something that we'd all laugh at together back home; one of many moments where I felt the similarities between our cultures. This might sound like a weird moment to have that realization; but this was just one of many moments where I felt this, and this one seemed easier to describe than some others.

After the restaurant, we continued on to a waterfall, went for a swim, and then went back to their home. I went out on the moped with Dolly's husband to pick up dinner from a vendor on the street. We ate another delicious meal, then everyone went inside to watch a Thai movie that I fell asleep watching. The next morning I woke up to more Thai food. After eating, I received a call from Mel; we chatted for a while & I told her about this experience. Afterwords, some of Dolly's students came over to study English. Dolly teaches English at the university, but it is currently summer break there so she teaches out of her home in the off season. Her students are from all ages, sometimes a 12 year old & 40 year old will be in the same session, and any age in between. I spoke with them a bit, simple sentences like "What's your name?" and "How old are you?" I could tell that Dolly was happy with this, and I was really happy to be able to give back in some way after all the very generous hospitality she had been giving me. As the English lessons continued, I spent some time in the background doing sudoku, which I used to hate but forced myself to do because it's good for the brain. I'm happy to say that my skill level in this has improved and now I quite enjoy it.

After the students left, Dolly & her friends told me about the upcoming Songkram Festival on April 13 and said I should stay until then. I told them I'd love to but I still want to go to Laos and other places. I pulled out my map and we started discussing places to go. Dolly said we can drive to Laos in her truck if I pay for the fuel, which will be about $60. This sounded great to me; traveling in style & sharing the experience with people who know a little more about the area. So as I understand the situation, we're going to Laos for a day or two, anytime now, maybe tomorrow. After that, we're going to come back here and take some day trips to other places of interest around here. Then I will be here for the Songkram Festival, which involves lots of water, and after the festival I'll carry on, on my own. Wow. How did this happen? Thank you whoever made this happen, I guess that means thank you Dolly for being so kind and open to strangers.

After all this discussion, I was sitting out in the yard playing with the dog. Dolly's husband got in the truck, others started following, and then someone said, "Lets go Jake." I got in and had a good laugh about the situation because Dolly was in the back with her dog, no one in the truck could speak English, and I had no idea where we were going. After driving for about 15 minutes, we pulled into a temple out in the woods. From what I gathered about the situation, the person we were there to see wasn't there, so we carried on. Our next stop was at their friend's house, one of the ladies who went on the original road trip where I met them. She married a Scottish military man 2 years ago and quickly became rich by Thai standard. He's in Afghanistan at the moment, but she invited us into her beautiful home for some snacks. We stayed for about an hour and then headed back home.

The home I refer to, where I've been staying, is actually Dolly's father-in-law's house. Dolly explained to me they are saving up for their own home and plan to buy next year. The father in law is also very kind and told me I am welcome to stay as long as I wish. He doesn't speak English but Dolly translated for me. The father-in-law (Papa) runs a small shop right across the street from their home, selling gas for mopeds, snacks, drinks & alcohol. Beside the shop, Dolly's husband runs a repair shop for mopeds. This whole experience has been very surreal. I can't imagine any better cultural experience. I felt a little awkward at first because they were being so incredibly kind and not even letting me pay for things like my meals. Part of me felt nervous wondering what the catch was but I was relieved yesterday when I realized I could help out by having short conversation's with Dolly's students, and I think that makes me a significant asset.

This morning I went with Dolly's husband to a nearby city. He doesn't speak English so I was again a bit confused as to what the situation was. He stopped outside a "Language Centre & Internet" shop and motioned for me to go inside. No one was inside so I turned on a computer. Shortly after, a lady came out who is actually another one of Dolly's friends who I've met. She also teaches English. She made me a nice cup of coffee & I continued on the computer. Soon after, some of her students came and she asked me if I would mind taking 10 minutes to speak English with them. Of course I was happy to do this. Since then I've seen Dolly's husband for about 5 minutes and I managed to figure out that we're in the city having their truck serviced. I just finished lunch with Dolly's friend and am looking forward to seeing what is going to come next.

Tourist office where I met Dolly & friends

Place on the river where we had lunch the first day
Checking out the waterfall on the way to their home
Dolly is the lady showing the peace sign
Some of Dolly's students that went with her on the road trip
A tree with roots growing in a very interesting way
The waterfall that's pretty dry at this time of year
Dolly's Uncle's farm/resort that we stopped in at

The guy's bringing us a freshly chopped banana tree (Dolly's husband on right)

The manager of the farm/resort at the entrance
Our visit to Dolly's friends house
Father & Mother dog, watching kids inside gates playing with their 2 week old puppy. Also see nice custom detail on the gates.

My Thai family's home

Looking out from the yard at the family bike shop

Papa's shop across the street (Papa is on the left filling up a moped)

Talking to English students while on the computer

Australia Zoo

My last day in Australia was spent at the Steve Irwin Zoo. I had a lot of fun checking out the different animals of Australia and other parts of the world. Most of the animals in the zoo were rescued or were born at the zoo, so I didn't feel bad for them for being taking out of the wild. It also looked like they were treated very well - the elephants were trained particularly well and moved around as requested by the zoo keepers without any hitting necessary - very unlike the way we saw elephants being treated in Thailand.

A very old & very big tortoise. Something like 120 years old I think.

I thought it looked a lot like a turtle and this raised the question of what's the difference...I found out that tortoises live only on land and turtles live both on land and in the water.

Sleeping koala. How cute. Dingo; just like the one that ate our food on Fraser Island. So what's the difference between a dingo & a wild dog? Not much, but there are a few small distinctions - apparently dingos always have a white tail, and they cannot bark. Brown snake. Don't want to run into these guys in the wild! Steve Irwin's "Crocoseum"

Can't remember what this is...

The elephant habitat, where I got to feed them. It was really funny feeling them suck the food from my hand with their trunk. I got to feed them about 5 times because there weren't nearly as many people there for the afternoon feeding.

The zoo is absolutely covered in Steve Irwin pictures. At first I thought it was exploiting him after his death, but then I realized the main goal of the zoo seemed to be to carry on Steve's lifelong goal of helping animals around the world. They showed a pretty powerful video of Steve speaking about his purpose for being on this planet.

The Tasmanian devil did not look like the one I knew of from my childhood...to be honest I was a bit disappointed to learn they look nothing like the guy in the cartoons.

There was a big open field where we could feed the kangaroos. There was also an area where they could go if they wanted to get away from the humans...but most of them were out to play so I was happy to see them voluntarily coming out to hang out with me and get some food.

I loved chillin' with the roos!

Looks like a giant mouse to me! Actually a wombat.

I put a lot of trust in this crock...

Video of kangaroo feeding
(invisible camera man didn't do a great job - especially at the end)

Sailing the Whitsundays

Despite the cyclone, my sailing trip departed Airlie Beach, as scheduled, on March 22. I knew very little about the boat I was going on, just that it was a sailboat that sleeps 30 people & its journey includes a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. I was very pleased to discover that the sailboat, named "Spank Me" is actually a 21-year-old race boat that has sailed all over the world. At 82 feet long and a mast over 100 feet long, Spank Me is quite the impressive vessel. I learned a good amount about sailing on this trip through both observation and questions. I've always been quite intimidated by all the ropes on a boat this size but managed to further my understanding of what they all do.

The main purpose of the trip was to sail the Whitsunday islands and scuba dive at the Great Barrier Reef. Unfortunately the weather did not co-operate so well and gave us lots of rain and fog during the trip. On top of that, the skipper didn't think it was worth going to the Great Barrier Reef because the cyclone stirred up the water so much. There's no denying that this brought much disappointment, but I did my best to be happy with what we were getting and when I approached it with that attitude it was not hard to have a fantastic time! When the sun did come out, it brough gorgeous sights that I made sure to soak in. I also went for a scuba dive, as planned, in what is apparantly still the Great Barrier Reef; just not the outer reef. Despite poor visibility, this was still a cool experience because it was my first open water dive and there was some wildlife in the waters with us.

Another way I made the most of the trip was by getting involved in the sailing as much as possible. On the second last day of the trip there was a strong wind. After our group finished some snorkeling, I metioned to the skipper that the wind would be perfect for a sail. He seemed more interested in chilling out and didn't have much of a response to my comment. A little while later, he ask the group if they wanted to go swimming at a beach. No one said yes right away, there was just some small talk and some people starting to say things like "I guess we could do that..." At which point I stood up and shouted "Lets go sailing!" Others responded positively and the skipper had little choice but to take us out into the open ocean. We got a good clip going and I was having a grand old time. I asked the skipper if I could take control and he quickly said no. I kept at him until he gave me the task of controlling the ropes for the boom swing during a jibe. After sucessfully completing this task, the skipper finally let me take the wheel. This lasted about 10 minutes and what a fantastic 10 minutes it was! I believe this is the largest vessel I've ever been in control of, and it felt great! I loved the fact that we were just moving with nature's power; no mechanical sounds, no emisions, just the wind blowing us through the ocean.

All in all it was a really enjoyable trip. Didn't get to scuba dive the real great barrier reef but that'll just have to wait for some other time. In the mean time, I'd like to seek out an opportunity to sail a boat like this again in the near future.

Some big flat fish that we swam with
Glorious!


The reef's brain. haha



It took 10 of us just to hoist up the sail!
Another sailboat passing by